Omagh’s first punk band formed in June 1978 after the two founding members Tony McGartland and Terry Kelly attended a Stiff Little Fingers gig on their “End Of The World Tour” on Friday 21st April 1978 at the Coach Inn bar in Omagh. Tony “Towards the end of the night Terry and I took to the stage and sang Iggy & The Stooges ‘I feel Alright’. I even managed to stand on the toe of Jake Burns’ winkle picker shoes amid the mayhem. Outside the band and road crew were attacked by the local hoods who didn’t understand what punk rock was all about. The same mob violently attacked the Tearjerkers several years later at the Barrel and Basket public bar. Some people just didn’t change. Jake Burns recalled the incident in a local radio interview when he said “Omagh men are like a bunch of maniacs let loose for the weekend”.

After adopting suitably punk names, Ernie Badness (Tony McGartland) and Terry Terror (Terry Kelly) all that was left to do was decide on what instruments to play and give the band a name. Ernie elected to take on guitar and vocal duties, leaving Terry to master the bass. By Halloween, the duo were playing their debut gig at their local CKS Community Centre. Soon after this they recruited Gene Obscene (Gene Turbitt) on drums. Rehearsing every Sunday at Gene’s garage, they quickly amassed a set of mainly original material, with songs such as Picking Spots / Mental Home / Hippies / All Alone / Scared To Dance, with some covers like Remote Control / Boredom and Lets Dance thrown in for good measure. Gene recalls his time with the band “We used to listen to the Sex Pistols on Radio Luxembourg. We taped Anarchy In The UK long before we managed to get the single. I personally thought it sounded like Hawkwind but after hearing the Clash’s debut album and God Save The Queen, I was up for it. I always wanted to play our own stuff, but we were just playing gigs at Discos etc, plus women hated us. They wanted to listen to the Grease sound track all night. It was a good laugh though”.

Straitjacket however disappeared from the scene as quickly as they had arrived, though Ernie kept himself busy with his then fanzine Plastic and later with his Positive Reaction fanzine. Ernie was also to emerge later in Omagh band Control Zone and he brought some of the Straightjacket songs with him. Ernie (Tony McGartland) has had several books published, including Buzzcocks - The Complete History, which has been published twice, the second print being an updated edition. Tony has also written Omagh Railway Station - A Journey Through Time.

The article below, on Straightjacket featured in the debut Issue of Positive Reaction Fanzine, March 1979.

January 27th 1979 saw StraitJacket play their last ever gig in front of their best audiences to date. The gig was at Omagh's CKS Community Centre and it wasn’t until after the gig we decided to call it a day. We enjoyed the gig as much as everyone did, it was just the only decision we could take because nobody is going to get anywhere really in Omagh unless they are very good. I myself had a lot of faith in ourselves because we were as good as and if not better than a lot of bands who had snatched big recording contracts an had singles and LP’s out already. Gene’s thoughts on Sham 69’s performance at the “Reading Festival" last year were well said, ”We're ten times better, they can’t even keep time”. Just listen to Sham’s Live performances, they cant compare at all to our songs, especially ‘Scared To Dance’ and the new one we wrote just a week before we split ‘All Alone’. If the Belfast company "Good Vibes" had a scent of what we were about we might have had some sort of chance because as far as I'M concerned the Good Vibs and "IT" records standards of bands recorded are not very high. Try listening to Midnight Cruiser, Victim, Outcasts, is just a good band recorded, so what happened us? At the minute Small Wonder and Alternative Ulster are in possession of a tape each of the band, but I hope they don’t get too fond of them cos we've sort of forgotten about it all.

January 1977 Terry Kelly and myself tried our first efforts at forming a band, it didn't work as I had no effect on Gene Turbitt at all, at trying to talk him into buying a drum kit, he really hated punk music. That night we brought him up to Kelly’s bedroom and played him the Clash first LP and the Sex Pistols Anarchy In the UK single. He liked them so after getting him a bit drunk he bought a second hand kit.

Our first gig was three or four days later at the CKS. We were invited to play three songs during the disco, just for the crack. Gene dian't play because he had no idea on the drum kit at all so me and Terry played away and Christ they must have thought we we were mad. At this stage we let Gene practise for a few weeks at home and it was then I launched my first fanzine. Plastic came out and the boys all bought it like sheep just cos it had pictures they never seen before. Pictures of Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious & The Clash. They never knew what punk was because we were the lucky ones who had picked it from London in 76 when we were at the Marquee and at the small Punk boutiques of the Kings Road.

November I977 and we werein Melody Maker alongside The Undertones and other Irish artists like Tony Cooper from Derry and Alwyn Greer who is editor of Private World. Both Stiff Little Fingers and Good Vibrations were not in it nor, as far as I remember, no trace of the big Belfast scene which exists today. Where were they when it all started anyway ? I tried telling people two years ago, who said punk rock would never catch on, that it would catch on in Ireland in two years time cos they are a slow race of people. Well we were there from the beginning anyway. Refused to support Pretty Floyd and the Gems at Belfast’s Pound Club because they are not a punk band. They’re a crowd of prats, they still keep their show band image any way. Got to see Stiff Little Fingers live in Coach Inn, Omagh and it give me big ideas that we were as good as them. I was only dreaming of course. We found it hard to get really good original songs but of the eight we did write all were excellent I thought myself. "Scared to Dance" was written for us by our so-called manager Thomas Craig who wrote the track about two years ago. So we didn't have any connection with the Skids LP name and its all the Omagh people who know that too because they've pogoed to it often enough. We often had the idea of cutting a single on our own label, Tom Craig was putting money into us to help us record it but it was a few hundred pound we needed and we weren't going to spend that sort of money among ourselves.

Played about 25 gigs and hope we never let you's down too much in breaking up, still theres two bands who both rose out after as just like the big punk boom after the Pistols in London, called Casper and Graffiti and they both played last night, 10th February at the CKS. I wasn't at it but reports say Casper (ex Rasputin) played well. They are a good band because they were our support band, set includes some by Lynyrd Skynyrd and Status Quo plus Stiff Little Fingers and TRB. And the the other outfit I know nothing about.

So now I’m back where I belong, behind a typewriter smoking a fag and filling your heads with lots of rubbish and uninteresting lies. Anyone who wishes to write an article for this mag, can do so, any subject at all and if it is any good I will print it. Hope to hear from someone anyway.

ERNIE BADNESS.